


Next Year in Jerusalem

by demon_rum



Category: Eagle of the Ninth Series - Rosemary Sutcliff, The Eagle | Eagle of the Ninth (2011)
Genre: Judaism, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-08
Updated: 2012-04-08
Packaged: 2017-11-03 07:06:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,036
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/378658
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/demon_rum/pseuds/demon_rum
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A brief sequel to Everything is a Stall, set in April 2014. Marcus decides to host his first seder.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Next Year in Jerusalem

 

Marcus stared at the table. Plates that matched, coordinating napkins, candles, wine glasses … check. But as for the rest of what he needed: egg? Check. Horseradish? Check. Lambshank and parsley? Check check. Shannon and Kevin were bringing the charoset, Steven and Jason were bringing wine, and Emily and Dov were bringing (hopefully) some sort of knowledge of what to do.

_Ahh—the orange! Where is the orange?_

__He poked his head into the kitchen just in time to find Esca cursing and clutching at a finger.

“Are you OK? What happened? Here, let me see.”

“Stupid knife! Oh god, it feels deep. Don't show it to me.” The nurse was pale and shaking, so Marcus grabbed the wounded finger and held it under running water. When the bleeding had temporarily slowed he inspected the cut while Esca faced away, trying as intently as possible to distance himself from his own hand.

“It's not too deep,” Dr. Aquila diagnosed, “and the edges are clean and well-approximated. I'll find a bandaid and hold pressure on it for a minute if you want. Honestly, it never ceases to amaze me how you can't handle the sight of your own blood.”

“Seeing my own blood is totally different from seeing somebody else's. I think I have to sit down.”

Esca flopped into a chair while Marcus performed compress-and-elevate until the blood clotted off. When he assessed the finger again, the cut had already sealed itself shut.

“There, you should live now. How's the brisket?”

“Is that all you can think about right now?” Esca gave him a Look.

“Well, I also wanted to ask about the orange—”

“Stop! Jesus, you're like a 2nd-grader. I don't think I've seen you this worked up since our first Christmas tree.”

“That tree was great,” Marcus grinned. “I can't believe you let me put so much tinsel and those awful blinking lights all over it.”

“That stupid tree looked like something out of _Ru Pauls' Shiniest Drag Race Christmas Pagent Ever_ , but you were so excited I couldn't say no. There, your Inclusive Orange is on the counter. You're going to have to peel it yourself, because I don't want juice in this cut.”

While Marcus fiddled with bits of peel Esca asked, “What are you in such a hurry for anyway? Nobody's going to be here for 30 minutes yet.”

“I thought I read somewhere about everything having to be ready by sundown. Can't light the candles after dark or something. Anyway, it's almost dark now … ”

Esca rolled his eyes, stood, and pulled Marcus away from his orange. It seemed like a good opportunity to kiss, so they kissed, and while Marcus was distracted by the kissing Esca felt around on the top of the doctor's head until he found and claimed his prize. He waved it in Marcus' face.

“Do you see this, Marcus?”

“Um, yes?”

“Fine. And what is it?”

“A yarmulke.”

“Where did you get this yarmulke?”

“You bought it for me on Etsy.”

“Good! And how often do you wear one?”

There was a pause while the doctor counted on his fingers. “This will be the third time. Ever.”

“And what's on the yarmulke?

“A rainbow.” Marcus tried to snatch it out of Esca's hands but was too slow. Esca wagged a finger at him in warning.

“I'm almost done. Last question: why do you have a rainbow on your yarmulke?”

“Because I'm gay?”

“Right.” Esca shoved the cap back on Marcus' head. “Jews who wear gay rainbow yarmulkes from Etsy are probably not the kind of Jews who need to worry about whether or not they can turn on the lights on the Sabbath. What have you been reading?”

Marcus muttered something that sounded suspiciously like 'wikipedia,' so Esca swatted him on the arm.  “Go pour me a glass of wine or something. I'm almost finished with the food.”

~*~

The eight of them were standing around in the living room, chatting and drinking freely. Steven and Jason were showing Emily pictures of their newly adopted daughter. Esca pestered Kevin about the importance of some early childhood education bill that had been stuck in committee, Dov handed out copies of the Haggadah, and Marcus showed Shannon (pregnant with her third and sticking to grape juice) this cool app he had downloaded.

“It shows you the Hebrew and then gives a phonetic pronunciation so you can read the prayers. Watch.” He poked at the screen and then sounded out the words as they appeared.

“ _Ba-RUKH a-tah a-do-NAI el-o-HEI-nu- MEH-lekh ha-o'LAM bo-reh PREE ha-GEH-fen_. I think that means 'Blessed are you, God, Ruler of the universe, who gave us wine.' Something like that.” He shrugged and laughed. “I've only had this app for a week. Really I have no idea what I'm doing, which is why Dov is here, right Dov?”

Dov shook his head emphatically and waved a booklet in the air. “Seriously, don't look to me for guidance. I might actually be less Jewish than you are—I do whatever Maxwell House tells me to do.” He and his wife Emily also wore yarmulkes; Emily's had a dove with a palm branch, Dov's had the Obama logo.

“I had no idea you were interested in Judaism, Marcus! This never came up once while we were together. What does your mom think?”

Marcus shook his head, wide-eyed, and Esca leaped into the conversation gap. “Shannon, with any luck she's never going to find out. Did you hear what happened last year when he tried to tell her that he was gay?” That had been a disastrous idea; it started with Ma reassuring her son that he was 'just going through a phase' and ended with an ugly fight between Marcus and Esca later that evening, for reasons neither of them could understand the next morning.

“It's just something I've always wanted to learn more about. I never got to experience any of this when I was growing up and I really felt that loss. So last year we got a Christmas tree _and_ a menorah, and it was so much fun that I mentioned wanting to take a stab at hosting a seder. And here we are. Shall we sit?”

~*~

“I didn't know you had to drink two full glasses of wine on an empty stomach before you got to eat any brisket. Ma never mentioned this bit to me.” Marcus dabbed at his forehead and hoped he looked less flushed than he felt. “When do we get to the part where we all say 'next year in Jerusalem'?” (He had seen that in a movie once.)

“That's at the very end. Here, let me get started with the afikoman.” Dov fished a piece of matzoh out of its bag and peered at the booklet in front of him. “I hold up all three pieces, and then take the middle one, put it under the bottom one, then … and I break it in half? OK, and then I put the bigger piece back under the bottom piece—”

“Smaller piece, hun,” Emily corrected. “It says we break up the bigger one and pass it around, and we make a little sandwich out of the matzoh and the horseradish, while you go hide the smaller piece, that's the afikoman, and then the youngest person here has to find the afikoman and get a prize while … the rest of us listen to a prayer read by someone who was born in Spring? I thought we already did that part. Am I going in circles?”

“It's kind of like playing D&D, or one of those complicated tabletop games where you have to do everything in order or the creeping darkness captures another one of your forts.” Kevin suggested.

“I think the reason we're getting lost is because we keep forgetting that the booklets go right-to-left, rather than the left-to-right that we're used to,” Shannon replied gently. She was the only sober one.

“Oh hey, you're right!” Emily shook her head as if trying to clear her thoughts. “I went forward a page rather than back. Or the other way.”

Steven had already reached the talking-too-loudly point of the evening. “Maybe we shouldn't have had any pre-seder drinks.” Jason laughed, accidentally dragged an arm through the bowl of charoset, and then knocked the Inclusive Orange off the seder plate while cleaning off his sleeve.

“All we have to do is eat the matzoh sandwich and sing the Dayenu song, and then we can have brisket,” Dov promised. “Dayenu means 'that would have been enough,' which we apparently should have said about the wine some time ago. But the song is really, really easy. It goes like this: day-day-dayenu, day-day-dayenu, day-day-dayenu, day-e dayenu (dayenu), repeat.”

Esca set his wine glass down a bit too hard. “That sounds like about as much as I can manage at the moment, and the beef's not getting any younger. Let's do it.”

~*~

“I am so full of wine.”

“Me too—oh god, my head. I had no idea a seder was just an elaborate Jewish drinking game.”

“I didn't know either! I always figured it was this solemn, spiritual kinda ceremonial … ceremony.”

“Oh, probably it could be, if you don't exclusively invite people who are liberal, atheist, or homos.”

They both started giggling. “A homo-seder! I like the sound of that.”

“Never say tht again. You're drunk, Marcus.”

“You're drunk too.”

They made out for a while, messily. Kissing was strange when both mouths tasted vaguely like Chardonnay and horseradish.

Finally Marcus sighed a contented sigh. He had gotten Esca's jeans unbuttoned and felt ridiculously pleased with himself. “Mmmm, marry me.”

Esca groaned, loudly. “How many times am I going to tell you no?” He swatted Marcus affectionately on the ass. “At least once more, I guess.”

“I'm gonna make it my yearly tradition.” Marcus shifted around on the bed, just enough to make it easier in case Esca wanted to swat him again. “I'm gonna throw a homo-seder, and I'm gonna honor my ancestors by having seven glasses of wine, and then I'm gonna propose to you. And then you're gonna say no. And then we'll do it again next year, if you haven't run off with some 23-year-old from Brazil who's got washboard abs.”

“Hell no! The entire time I've been with you, you've been a resident. There's no way I'm going to bail once you become a full-on doctor and rake in the grand salary of $140,000—”

“—which, as we've already discussed, will more like $50,000 after taxes and student loans repayments and malpractice insurance.”

“More than I make,” Esca grumbled. “Are you really still worried I'm going to run off with some sexy young thing named Paolo?”

“Yeah, sometimes,” Marcus admitted.

They both got quiet. Time passed.

Eventually Esca elbowed Marcus out of his thoughts. “So, we'll get drunk at your seder and then afterwards?”

“Afterwards I will try to grope you like a teenager, and you'll push me away, and I'll say 'Esca, will you marry me?' and then you will say—”

“Yes.”

Marcus sobered up (well, he tried to). “Wait—that's a 'yes' as in 'yes, that's how things will go next year,' or some other kind of 'yes'?”

“Why don't you ask me again and find out?” Esca gave him a drunkenly-reassuring smile. “I don't think it matters. I'm here and you're probably stuck with me at this point. But apparently you're not so convinced of that, so—go on. Try it.”

“Fine. Esca—marry me?”

“Okay!”

There was a pause while both men stared at each other. Marcus caved first, of course.

“Really? Like actually? Say it again. Esca, will you marry me?”

“YES, DAMMIT. But: courthouse marriage, not some stupid thing with tuxes and cake, and I'm not taking your last name. Nor are you taking mine. And promise me you won't tell your Ma. I will let you pick the honeymoon spot, just so long as you don't say Portland, because we always go to Portland—maybe hit Europe? We could go to Rome, or Dublin, or Munich … anything else you want, besides a silly piece of paper and a vacation?”

“Nope—dayenu!”

They returned to kissing.

 


End file.
